What No One Said About NCLB Profiteering (Except the People Who Were Saying It)

New York Times columnist Gail Collins had a good critique of standardized testing and the No Child Left Behind law (4/28/12), weighing in on the “Pineapplegate” controversy about a bizarre question that appeared on a New York English exam.

She writes:

We have turned school testing into a huge corporate profit center, led by Pearson, for whom $32 million is actually pretty small potatoes. Pearson has a five-year testing contract with Texas that’s costing the state taxpayers nearly half-a-billion dollars.

Indeed. But then comes this:

This is the part of education reform nobody told you about. You heard about accountability, and choice, and innovation. But when No Child Left Behind was passed 11 years ago, do you recall anybody mentioning that it would provide monster profits for the private business sector?

Me neither.

While it’s good to see columnists use something in the news to talk about a larger political issue–that’s what they do–Collins shouldn’t pretend that no one was drawing a connection between a law that would require a massive increase in test taking and the financial interests of testing companies.

And in fact it was being written about. Just one example: Stephen Metcalf wrote an excellent piece in the Nation (1/10/02) –an article that so impressed the nobodies here at FAIR that we interviewed him on CounterSpin.

Metcalf pointed out:

And, not surprisingly, the Bush legislation has ardent supporters in the testing and textbook publishing industries. Only days after the 2000 election, an executive for publishing giant NCS Pearson addressed a Waldorf ballroom filled with Wall Street analysts. According to Education Week, the executive displayed a quote from President-elect Bush calling for state testing and school-by-school report cards, and announced, “This almost reads like our business plan.”

The bill has allotted $387 million to get states up to speed; the National Association of State Boards of Education estimates that properly funding the testing mandate could cost anywhere from $2.7 billion to $7 billion. The bottom line? “This promises to be a bonanza for the testing companies,” says Monte Neill of FairTest, a Boston-based nonprofit. “Fifteen states now test in all the grades Bush wants. All the rest are going to have to increase the amount of testing they do.”

Testing was already big business: According to Peter Sacks, author of Standardized Minds: The High Price of America’s Testing Culture and What We Can Do to Change It, between 1960 and 1989 sales of standardized tests to public schools more than doubled, while enrollment increased only 15 percent. Over the past five years alone, state testing expenditures have almost tripled, from $141 million to $390 million, according to Achieve Inc., a standards-movement group formed by governors and CEOs. Under the new legislation, as many as 15 states might need to triple their testing budgets.

All of which has led to a feeding frenzy.

The big educational testing companies have thus dispatched lobbyists to Capitol Hill. Bruce Hunter, who represents the American Association of School Administrators, says: “I’ve been lobbying on education issues since 1982, but the test publishers have been active at a level I’ve never seen before. At every hearing, every discussion, the big test publishers are always present with at least one lobbyist, sometimes more.” Both standardized testing and textbook publishing are dominated by the so-called Big Three–McGraw-Hill, Houghton-Mifflin and Harcourt General–all identified as “Bush stocks” by Wall Street analysts in the wake of the 2000 election.

It’s all right there, a decade ago. Proof that reading independent media–be it in the Nation or countless others–is essential for understanding the political debates of the present–and the future.

Activism Director and and Co-producer of CounterSpinPeter Hart is the activism director at FAIR. He writes for FAIR's magazine Extra! and is also a co-host and producer of FAIR's syndicated radio show CounterSpin. He is the author of The Oh Really? Factor: Unspinning Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly (Seven Stories Press, 2003). Hart has been interviewed by a number of media outlets, including NBC Nightly News, Fox News Channel's O'Reilly Factor, the Los Angeles Times, Newsday and the Associated Press. He has also appeared on Showtime and in the movie Outfoxed. Follow Peter on Twitter at @peterfhart.

Strangely what this article points to has nothing to do with right or left .It is an economic truth at play.Whenever the government mandates anything,weather it be bricks to build buildings with ,or tests to learn to build those buildings……Little fish follow the great ship of government nibbling at what is cast behind.Growing fat some of them.
Most tings created by the government have unexpected consequences.The usual outcome is money spent like water.That and inefficiency.

The inefficiency is worse, however, if private interests are allowed to feed at the government trough, as in this case, because corporations are so much more inefficient and corrupt than the government. That can also be seen in health care. Costs are always going to be a problem there, but in the US they are so much worse because of the vast overhead involved in letting private insurance companies run the system.

My what a surprise! The whole NCLB has been a well orchestrated scam. Why do we fail to give teaching professionals the same courtesy other professionals get. Teachers need degrees and certifications to work within the public school systems. Oh, to save a buck those charter school replacements won’t require such niceties. The greediest will destroy the public school system and stick us with the bill. The strength of America is our diversity, not uniformity. Allow teachers decide the best path for their charges.

Well no one said NCLB is a failure.Some parts of it work ,some don’t.Teachers learned that to do well ,they should teach the tests -in effect.Cerainly not in the spirit of the plan but understandable.So in effect part of its failings are not in design.It is as always the devil in the details.The idea of trying to hold teachers accountable(like every other industry)is good.Again the bureaucratic snafus that follow are always fun to watch.Buy lets not believe It is not a scam from inception.That is ludicrous.And comparing the honesty of corporations vs government is a weird argument.Like comparing the honesty of teachers to that of their students. Kind of silly.Corporations are made up almost entirely of” joe public” citizens.Government is made up entirely of people getting a paycheck from Uncle Sam(the private citizens tax payment)If government is inherently more honest than the citizenry Id be surprised.I will be nice and call it about even.
Glenn name me these imaginary 1%ers (names please)that rule over us all from behind the great and powerful curtain.Is it a term that simply indicates who among us made the most last year,and like everybody else does ….follows to the letter the governments rules on taxation??I will say it again ..THE GOVERNMENTS RULES!!!!You know the rules the house sets up for their own benefit.Whether it be allowing rich folk to hand their money directly over …or invest in things the government allows?Or is it some secret society like skull and bones that meets every 22nd friday night at the the Applebe’s facing the capital building ?Do they have secret handshakes and special secret code rings?Do they whisper how to hide their money from the IRS?Those villians!See you libs say this crap long enough until it becomes part of the lexicon.Oooooh God run it’s the 1%er gang.Come to steal from the poor.

“…Corporations are made up almost entirely of” joe public” citizens.Government is made up entirely of people getting a paycheck from Uncle Sam…”

Actually, both are made up of tiers, the employee tiers of both are “Joe Public” citizens. Both have layers of management, both have decision makers whose goals may or may not coincide with the stated goals of the gov or corp.

“….Buy lets not believe It is not a scam from inception.That is ludicrous…”

Ahhh, no. It’s not. What’s ludicrous is your tiny frame of reference. The scam just happens way above the pay grades of employees, and 99% of management. Pearson Education Inc. cares nothing about educating children, holding teachers (or anyone else) “accountable”. The corporate entity cares about its stock price, period. Any attention to its products or services is paid only to advance that concern, period. Outside of the boardroom, concerns aren’t for the “most effective” , “most accurate”, “most proven”, but for the most marketable, the most profitable, period.

To that end, they may or may not have dedicated, knowledgeable educators doing the best that they can. What they certainly have are lobbyists peddling positions and laws that suit the overall goal of stock performance and corporate profitability. Those people are influencing tax law, education law, stock trading law, whatever and wherever they can, in furtherance of objectives not made plain.

“…Do they have secret handshakes and special secret code rings?Do they whisper how to hide their money from the IRS?”

Such contempt coupled with such relentless intellectual dishonesty or laxity! “hide their money from the IRS”, that is laughable!

Their club doesn’t need membership symbols or secret handshakes, genius. If you share the need and ability to make law such outrages as ‘carried interest’, or depreciation schedules that bear no resemblance to actual depreciation, or tax laws that allow you to deduct fines for corporate mis or malfeasance, or something similar, then you’re in!

If you’ll get your congresscritter to lean a bit my way on this, I’ll get mine to lean your way on that, you’re in!

Geez, the tech industry, mining, pharmaceuticals/medical devices, etc. employ many of the same lobbying firms, because they, despite their diversity, have so much in common! Lower corporate tax rates, lay off obligations and liability for employee or consumer safety, environmental responsibility…

Factoring off a “one percenter” based solely on income demonstrates woeful ignorance of current events, much less the issues.

The original iteration of NCLB required a curriculum – test product that was only available at the time from a neighbor of Geo. W. Bush.

NCLB was a scam from day one.

It continues with graduation tests that have no predictive capacity for success in life – as a student in a post secondary setting or even as an employee in a job that requires less post secondary training. For a real eye opening experience look up a copy of “last year’s test”. As a reasonably successful adult with 3 college degrees and multiple state licenses and certifications I was mystified the requirement of trig. I’ve lived 62 years and haven’t had to use trig since my last trig test in high school in 1968.

The 1% is quite brilliant. They concocted NCLB and sold it to the public through their sycophants (politicians, media, and pundits). The NCLB serves to (further) dumb down future voters (i.e. students).

This country had the best system of education in the world up until the 60’s. The student movements of that era scared the #$@% out of the ruling elite. They have been systematically dismantling public education to reduce the masses to skilled ignorant obedient worker ants. The fact that Americans go to poll after poll and vote against their economic interests and believe any justification for endless war is evidence of the 1% success. I admire the ruling elite’s entrepreneurial spirit. They have found a way to dumb down the public while laughing all the way to the bank – sheer ingenuity!

However since capitalism always devours itself, the greed of the 1% has made life so hopeless for the youth that they are waking up in droves and rapidly raising their own consciousness. The Occupy Movement is the result. And I am proud of them. I only wish they saw the relationship between the economy and the Empire with its 1000 worldwide bases in 130 countries, endless expensive wars and support of dictators that only create more terrorists and hatred for us!

If the intention of NCLB had been – as Arne Duncan likes to pretend – to educate American youngsters, even someone with only a high school education could have figured out that standardized testing does not educate . . . not at all. If, on the other hand, the intention had been to dumb down and repress the future work force, combined with the Crash of ’08 orchestrated by the 1% (whose kids go to expensive private schools), to maintain the worst trickle-up depredations of the status quo, then aforementioned 1% consider it a success and will do all manner of dastardly deeds to preserve it; after all, they were raised to believe the ends justify the means and consider the fact that they have all the money (they stole) and all the thugs to keep things just as they are.

A very simple civil war divides Americans now. It sunders American ed, too.

This civil war pits the gods of money against those not so reduced.

On the money side, we have of course the far right Supreme Court, and its Citizens United throw of all people, history, and life itself to the most vulgar of large corporate and other massive money interests. We have persons (technically speaking they’re still persons) who want to reduce all life to numbers. They not only love standardized tests for doing that, but they love the authoritarianism built into A-B-C-D-only-one-correct-answer because authority knows that one answer. And when “essays” on standardized tests are computer gradable, they love how writing itself reduces to the formulas which computer algorythms can instantly grade.

Life as numbers also permits the careerists of “higher” ed to reduce the literacy, humanity, and imagination of all to the narrowest orthodoxies of departmentalism.

Life as numbers permits the advertisers, pollsters, and marketers a field day in their devising of demographics, trackings, charts, and stats that all reduce humanity to cleverly-manipulated numericized formulas. Politicians can pander to this reduced biz. Consumerism and sprawl culture grow in their cancerous ways from it.

Meanwhile, on the other side, there’s humanity, with its literacies of music and stories.

Let’s please remember, as we see the growth of these standardized tests, the reduction of all ed to most corporate of biz models, and the money grubbing of politicians and their spouses from all this, that there yet are other gods.

Pretty much every major initiative from the Bush administration: Halliburton’s war on Iraq, Medicare Part D, NCLB and the failed attempt to privatize Social Security all had the same goal….transfer wealth from the taxpayers to the corporations…all for the benefit of the 1%’ers who owned the stock.

NCLB is a scam, michael e. You have no idea how many scary tutoring companies have sprung up to benefit from this throwing away of government money.

I have tried working for a few NCLB places, as I thought there must be some logic to it, but no…only madness. One place had the kids for only 29 hours…hmmm and as to what they expected to find in that 29 hours of time, I’m not sure. However, weirdly, they never put the same child with the same teacher. That would have been logical to keep continuity, but no…apparently too much time was needed in planning for that.
I had several kids on the 10th or 11th hour of that 29 hours of NCLB . They all seemed to have trouble reading. I asked them a simple question. “Do you need to wear glasses?” Sadly, they all did, but, NO ONE HAD NOTICED that they couldn’t see.
This particular tutoring place didn’t seem too interested in having me report that information; yes, within a short time, I no longer worked there. : ) Neither tutors nor students are encouraged to think, it seems. More time was spent filling put little boxes and writing notes in justifying this stupid waste of NCLB time, rather than in helping the students.

Most of the kids really did want to do better and they really did care about learning. NCLB is not set up to care, to teach nor to be of any value, except for those people who think that education is just a big money making bubble test, which sadly is created and marketed by bubble heads.
If that’s not a scam….please define scam. : )

Gloriana actually seems to be struggling with the answer.The rest of you are a bit lost.I get you don’t like standardized testing and all the rest.But here is the question.What do you think would work toward the betterment of our education system?Im listening.If your answer is simply a robotic “tax the rich-and chuck their money at the problem”, then Im warning you………I have a beautifully bound copy of the constitution, and I WILL heave it with top spin at your pointy little heads.The floor is yours

michael e.:
People are mistaking the moral compass for a GPS. We can’t get anywhere from there. Lots of states used to have rules that if a student didn’t pass, then that student would be held back. That doesn’t seem to happen much now. Consequences seem to be a foreign idea from the school rooms to the back rooms of the Congress!

Bubble tests are great for younger kids, in the sense that they learn to memorize, use order, and recall things. Beyond that little kid stage, facts are really only useful when a person can actually do something with them. Spewing off facts isn’t all that useful unless a person can show how the facts MAY lead to a particular point.

It would be wonderful if all these tests could be essay style to see if thoughts and conclusions could actually be supported with something. It would be even better if oral tests were given, so that it would be possible to see how students came to their ideas or conclusions in real time. Of course, this would require more time and care, but I really don’t see how anyone can claim an educational system without this.

What would be even nicer is if the qualities which created a good student (questioning, follow-up, brainstorming, researching, creating ,and implementing) were also the same qualities that were recognized by employers, many of whom, are so resistant to questions. : )

For those of you attempting to engage others who offer comments at the FAIR Blog, I would recommend my basic approach: If you met this person at a cocktail party, and s/he said the same things that s/he has written, would you engage this person in conversation or remove yourself to another part of the room?

There are those who some call “Trolls” who, for whatever reason, will say contradictory and outrageous things to get attention. Responding to them only encourages them. Don’t lower yourselves to his or her level; it’s hopeless and dispiriting.

Teaching to tests alone leaves us with students who can take those tests. Teachers who only know how to cater to those tests and then jobs that have to find a means to use these people to manufacture things we need but no more. No attempt to teach analytical thinking. (Which has been found to depress the intuitive/mystic and god centered way of thinking.) We need less praying and more thinking not robotic tests to lead children to the robotic corporation. Not good for us as a country. Look to Finland. They have solved their problem on education. It would also help if it took only one person to earn enough because now in our Depression two if they can find work can’t earn enough now to live anything but a lower class life. If they can find a job that is.

michael e – You may very well have a “beautifully bound copy of the constitution,” but based on your responses, it is evident you have not bothered to crack it open. And I’m not sure what that has to do with raising taxes, other than the fact that it is certainly constitutional for our government to do so.

“What do you think would work toward the betterment of our education system?”

Hmm, how about scrapping NCLB and returning to the quite successful education system we had before that horrendous legislation? The system was working quite well back then, churning out higher rates of high school grads with well-rounded educations so they could go on to have successful college and/or professional careers. Now, after NLCB, we have the highest rate of high school drop outs in this nation’s history, and the ones who do manage to graduate are often illiterate, cannot think critically, do not understand basic scientific principles, and wouldn’t know where to find South Korea on a map if their life depended on it.

NCLB is failing our kids, failing our teachers, and failing our country. To think otherwise, you would have to be a product of such a failed system.

If no one said it still, I’ll say it: NCLB is a failure! Most of the promised funding never delivered. The kids all know any failure will be blamed on the teacher. Some fill in the same letter the whole test, without reading at all, then sleep. The only thing that invalidates the test is if not enough student show up that day. They have no incentive to work if their parents don’t value education. Kids who rub their eyes because they’ve been up all night playing video games, with parents so focused on protecting their child, they will say “allergies” and “yours is the only class my child has trouble with” when I know they have a 10 average in Science class. The country is left with students who, MAYBE, can take tests that have been “catered” to them. No creativity or independent thinking for an entire school generation. A generation used to having easy handed to them. They don’t even care to look for the easy they like, but take whatever ease is in front of them.

People I am not saying NCLB is a winner.On many levels it is obviously a failure.And Gloriana turns to some very salient points.TD clearly says that the old system was better and asks me what I think.I like that some here have said it comes down to parental responsibility.Personal responsibility,AND teachers responsibility.I do not think strictly speaking that this is a fiscal problem.I do not think the powerful teachers unions have always been helpful in solving this problem.It would seem to me that those who can make these educated decisions about what is best for our children have a lot of good examples to choose from.In my area there are some very good public schools,charter schools,Catholic schools,and some home schooled and cyber schooled children who seem to be doing very well.We need to study that and move toward the best ideas.We need to shoot for ,and push toward the top.Moving the bar up.Pulling it down does not seem to be working.
In the end those children who are falling far behind are kids who are suffering from the same debilitating things we see over and over again(things FINLAND has far less of)We see the American family unit imploding on many levels.Money wont help that.

I was working at National Computer Systems having been bought from a CADCAM company on the east coast and saw a bunch of crooks at NCS making huge money from government contracts in the testing “industry”. I just did my thing and watched it all and then Pearson Plc. bought us just before 911 and then GW Bush came up and handed us the no-bid cost plus contract to set up the TSA for 104 million. Nine months later they billed the Taxpayers 742 million. I saw executives laughing and hugging each other then retiring. There is business, and there is crime and what I saw was worse than watching the Italian mob take over the first place I worked in the 60’s at an A&P packing plant. What you don’t know is yes it IS the 1% because the Baron, Lord who Chaired Pearson Plc. is the 1% and sat on the board of Rothchild, House of Lords Appointment Commission for the Queen of England, attended Bilderberg, The Council on Foreign Relations, was Chairman of HBOS-(which collapsed requiring the English citizens to bail it our for hundreds of billions) and linked No Child Left Behind to NCS the largest school testing company in the USA to his operation as the largest educational publisher in the USA. All they do is look for ways to make huge piles of money and fleece the little people. Even GW Bush and Obama etc. are just flunkies for them. The US Justice Dept. and Congress had “investigations” which went nowhere as they pulled “National Security” and so it goes. Bottom line? You’re screwed, it’s all an illusion for us little people and these boys operate way above any governments and are global in outlook. NCLB was just part of the new computerized control grid like the TSA and Homeland Security and has absolutely nothing to do with “education”. Bigger than that too as they also run Psych Corp. which is related and is used by the Federal Government, military, CIA, prison industrial complex, Justice Dept. and every Psychiatrist with the major drug companies to control everyone and make billions too. All mostly an illusion and massive “jobs” program while the real rulers make more money controlling the banking “system” and major corporations starting with energy giants. Good news? Oil still rules and markets all relate to the price of oil. Dollar is backed by oil and they control most global production. Trade off charts-record of real prices and invest smart in real securities that pay cash dividends like pipelines for the next 20 years. You can’t beat them but you can do as they do and collect cash off the operations. Pearson is a major part of the British Empire and City of London corp. Goes way back to before the American Revolution and even was part of taking out Lybia and making a fortune of China with the Opium trade. They’ve been in construction, oil, publishing, education, politics, and foreign policy etc. for a long time. US Constitution doesn’t apply to them they are above it and any laws and what I saw blew my little peon mind.

[…] put together by the three-headed cartel. The same that spends millions of dollars — see here and here — to influence school boards and local politicians to press on for more alleged reforms that […]